Recently, David and I were invited to participate in the keynote speech of Ericsson’s CEO, Hans Vestberg, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas; a convention that draws nearly a 150.000 visitors from all walks of life, though middle-aged white guys are heavily represented.
For Refugees United, it was not just a great opportunity to shed further light on our longstanding and innovative relationship with Ericsson, leveraging our individual strengths to help separated refugee families reconnect, but a chance to engage a whole new world.
Even more so than normal, plastic shrouds the world of Las Vegas during CES: Phones, tablets, TVs, games, gadgets and other electronics are everywhere on display, drooled over, fondled, and quickly forgotten.
In other words, this wired universe couldn’t be any further from the disconnected realities of the 43 million displaced people who Refugees United seek to help.
Disappearing onto a stage 30 meters wide and 15 deep, the bright lights hiding the faces of several thousand journalists sitting in the audience, we’re here to shine a light of our own. Shifting the balance from mobile networks and the speed of data delivered, we seek to grab time, for just a moment, and slow it down for the room to grasp the challenges faced by the more than 70.000 refugees using our mobile platform in search of their missing loved ones.
Explaining the hardships a refugee mother must endure in her search for a missing child to this group, attention is drawn from what gadget to get next to how “ancient” technologies such as SMS and WAP can help reunite countless thousands of refugee families. And that’s the beauty of it. The chance to warp the minds of people a million miles removed from the challenges of Somalia; introducing smart people to ideas they may never have had before is worth its weight in inspirational gold.
Tech-journalists, building CES news on columns of digital excess, are suddenly contemplating an invisible divide keeping families apart, and the ability of simple phones to bring them back together. That’s what we love. Beyond reconnecting families, trying to bring others to open their eyes to those we help.
The platform Refugees United has built with Ericsson is growing in reach, influence and the ability to help families reconnect. Hopefully the wave will grow ever larger this year, enabling us to return together at next year’s CES and recount the profound family stories sweeping through refugee camps and Africa at large.
David and Christopher
On behalf of the Refugees United Team
